It is a biblical positive command to assemble all Israelites, men, women, and children, after the close of every sabbatical year, when they go up to make the pilgrimage, and recite to them sections from the Torah which will urge them to perform the precepts and encourage them to cling to the true religion, as it is written: "At the end of every seven years, the year set for remission, at the festival of Sukkoth, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord … gather the people, men, women, and children, and the strangers within your towns…" (Deuteronomy 31:10-12).

When were the biblical sections read? At the close of the first festival day of Sukkoth, being the beginning of the intermediate days of the feast, in the eighth year. It was the king who read to them, and the reading took place in the Court of Women. He might read sitting; but if he read standing, it was deemed praiseworthy. From where in the Torah did he read? From the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy to the end of the Shema section (6:9), resuming at If you will carefully obey (11:13), thence beginning at You shall set aside every year a tenth part (14:22), continuing in due order until the end of the blessings and the curses (27:15-28:69), as far as: in addition to the covenant which he had made with them at Horev (28:69). And there he stopped.

How did he read? Trumpets were blown throughout Jerusalem to assemble the people; and a high platform, made of wood, was brought and set up in the center of the Court of Women. The king went up and sat there so that his reading might be heard. All the Israelite pilgrims would gather round him. The ḥazzan of the synagogue would take a Sefer Torah and hand it to the head of the synagogue, and the head of the synagogue would hand it to the deputy high priest, and the deputy high priest to the high priest, and the high priest to the king, to honor him by the service of many persons. The king would receive it standing or sitting, as he pleased. He would open it and look in it, reciting the blessing used by anyone who reads the Torah in the synagogue. He would read the sections we have mentioned until he would come to the end. Then he would roll up the Sefer Torah and recite a blessing after the reading, the way it is recited in the synagogue.— —

The Torah reading and the blessings had to be in the sacred tongue, as it is written: "You shall read this Torah" (31:11), in its very language, even though there might be there persons using a foreign language.

Proselytes who did not know Hebrew were required to direct their hearts and listen with utmost awe and reverence, as on the day the Torah was given at Sinai. Even great scholars who knew the entire Torah were required to listen with utmost attention. If there was a person who could not hear, he had to direct his heart to this reading, which Scripture has instituted only for the purpose of strengthening the true faith. Each had to regard himself as if he had been charged with the Torah now for the first time, and as though he had heard it from the mouth of God, for the king was an ambassador proclaiming the words of God.

When the day of hakhel falls out on Shabbat, we push it off to after Shabbat, because of the blowing of trumpets and the supplications, [both of] which do not preempt the Shabbat. We have finished the laws of the festival offering, with Heaven's help.